Aeroflot Open 2013

Over the course of many years, the Aeroflot Open in Moscow established itself as one of the biggest and strongest Open tournaments in the world.

Sadly, the 2013 edition of the event held from 12-17 February had a completely revised format. Instead of a 9-round Open Swiss at standard time controls, we were "treated" to a confusing mix of rapid and blitz events, and no classical chess at all. A very strange decision by the organisers.

The event started with a 9-round rapid (15 minutes plus 10 second increment) qualifying competition of more than 250 players, with 32 players advancing to the next stage. Many of the last round games were agreed drawn in just a few minutes as leading players ensured their top-32 qualification places. In some games, as little as 3 moves were played. At the opposite extreme, one round 6 encounter lasted 194 moves!

Comments

I just want to agree - this format is just awful - taking a great annual event and making somewhat of a carnival out of it. What are we doing with our game? If we aren't careful FIDE will be deciding World Championships with Rapid playoffs - oh that's right they already do.

that was not a fair format, most of the players had to play many games to get to the end stage, while 8 players got to start in the final stage such as Ian who won the tournament, but he only had to play in last stage. It was not a fair setup.

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